As it turns out, the parents in the series, Ethan and Casey Jones of Austin, Tex., used intrauterine insemination to conceive both their 6-year-old daughter and their 17-month-old quintuplets. Viewers who don’t resent a little misdirection will likely enjoy keeping up with the Joneses, who provide the same visions of adorable chaos that we tend to see in this genre of programming but also have the sort of problems that most people can sympathize with in these hard times.
In the first two episodes, airing tonight at 10 p.m., we meet Ethan and Casey, two attractive former high school sweethearts living with their six beautiful, blond children in a spacious house on a big lot. They say that they had planned to give their daughter Eliot a younger sibling but wound up with five.
Though the picture is almost too perfect, the family’s financial situation is anything but. Ethan is a homebuilder whose income has dropped sharply during the recession, and they spent more than they could afford on their house, thinking that they could resell it at a profit.
In the first episode, the couple decides it can’t wait for conditions to improve, so they put the house on the market. Following their broker’s orders, they try to clear out the clutter, then take the kids to a local swimming pool on the day of the open house.
In this family, a day at the pool is a production. Ethan mentions that they have received a lot of help from “volunteers,” but the identity of some of the women in the background is unclear.
In the second episode, Ethan is asked to speak at his own MBA graduation ceremony. The show says that the offer was made because of Ethan’s “unusual circumstances,” but one can help wondering if it was also because the university wouldn’t mind the publicity. In any case, he chokes up while thanking Casey for her support.
Then they decide to celebrate by having three other couples over for dinner. They realize later that their guests spent most of the time helping care for the quintuplets.
This show has to deal with something beyond the family’s control: the shadow of “Jon & Kate Plus Eight.” One suspects that the constant reminders of the family’s financial problems are a pre-emptive reaction to the kind of criticism that Jon and Kate Gosselin received that they were exploiting their sextuplets for money.
After clearing out the house, Ethan donates their unwanted possessions to poor families, saying that he appreciates all the help his family has received along the way.
Though it’s a little caddish to compare nonprofessional children, the Jones quints aren’t quite as engaging as the Gosselin kids, if only because they just starting to talk and aren’t yet able to say the darnedest things.
Eliot is precocious in a good way. When she finds one of the toddlers’ pants on the floor, she says imperiously, “What’s the meaning of this?”
Ethan and Casey tease each other occasionally. He says that she’s a packrat — in one scene, she refuses to let him throw out some plastic hangers — and he says that she only agreed to go out with him in high school after “she ran out of older men to date.”
That would be a lot cuter if we didn’t remember Jon and Kate sitting on a couch exchanging zingers that eventually devolved into personal attacks.
Even the scene in which Casey wears a bikini at the pool will make some viewers think of the tabloid shots of Kate Gosselin showing off her tummy tuck.
Fortunately, the first two episodes of “Quints by Surprise” suggest that Ethan has a better sense of humor than Jon and that Casey is less desperate for attention than Kate. A likable reality couple — maybe that’s this show’s real surprise.
